ISSUES

Taxpayers Get the Message About Unfunded Mandates

Thousands of cities and towns will be mailing out local property tax bills this month, and some of them will have a different look. Instead of leaving taxpayers to wonder what's causing higher rates, a growing number of local officials are sending along an answer that most people don't even suspect.

City leaders are pointing out that Washington's politicians, bureaucrats and special interests are the culprits behind much of their local tax burden.

They say that federal orders, or mandates, are requiring them to do everything from testing water supplies for contaminants they can't even find to enforcing various federal laws with little or no financial aid. Rather than tolerate this thinly disguised buck-passing, local leaders are saying "Enough is enough," and are telling their taxpayers about it.

LaGrange, GA., city officials list the costs created by unfunded mandates on rising real estate and utility bills, noting the costs were "beyond the control of your mayor and council." To discuss the matter, the notice suggests, "Call your U.S. senators and representatives."

Mayor Sharpe James of Newark, N.J., president of the National League of Cities, summed up the situation this way: "We have the federal government writing checks on our city's bank account.

"The federal government is trying to tell us they know what's best for us at the local level when they do not. We've become, at the local level, tax collectors for the federal government — and we resent that."

Hindrance, Not Help

Leaders of the National League of Cities say irrational mandates take away money needed for important local priorities such as fighting crime.

Unfunded mandates hurt municipal budgets even more than teen pregnancy and drug problems, officials claim, and had a greater impact over the past year than gang violence.

Tactics such as tax bills that itemize mandated costs are starting to get citizens' attention. Meanwhile, NLC launched another campaign to let citizens know who is voting to impose or to remove unfunded mandates.

The League will be tracking key congressional votes on six major bills involving unfunded mandates this year. How each senator and representative voted will be distributed in October as part of a National Unfunded Mandates Week campaign.

"Mandates are a hidden tax on everyone who lives in our city, and along with being city officials, we also are local taxpayers," one local official noted. "This has to stop." •

Page 16 / Illinois Municipal Review / July 1994